Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to S. 4199, the JUDGES Act. I appreciate the comments that have come from the Republican side this morning, Chairman Jordan in particular. We have had a chance to pass bipartisan legislation out of that committee. In fact, a couple of those bills have been mine, cosponsored with Republican Wesley Hunt. I know we can get it done. I know we can work in a bipartisan fashion and get legislation out of the committee when we choose to do so. Mr. Speaker, the idea behind this bill was to take the politics out of judicial nominations and selections. I think it is pretty clear. I think everyone would agree that this system has been broken for some time. The Republicans point to the Bork nomination. On the Democratic side, we look at what happened with Merrick Garland and his Supreme Court nomination, which was blocked. He had to wait almost a year and wasn't even given a hearing during that time. Then, after that, Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed by the Senate in about a 3-week period, if I recall correctly, even though that happened just before the election and President Biden would have been in place to make the selection for the Supreme Court at that time. This bill was aimed at trying to get around that and take the politics out of the selection process by having the decision made with respect to the passage of the legislation before we knew who the President was going to be.…”